Elizabeth My Dear
by Wallace
Summary: I can think of about four different ways to bring Psylocke back to life. This one seems to me to have the best chance of a happy ending.
1. I am the Resurrection

Elizabeth My Dear  
  
Disclaimer: The characters (notably the Braddock twins and the X-Men) and settings mostly belong to Marvel. The title, chapter headings, and any unlabelled song lyrics, come from songs from the Stone Roses' 'Stone Roses' album, and I'd like to add that the three things to do before you die are make peace with your children, empty your wine cellar, and listen to the Stone Roses. They are the Metatron. The story belongs to me, although most of the key elements are drastically unoriginal. This is my way of resurrecting Psylocke. I've done anger, now witness a denial.  
  
There is a plot, but the first chapter is establishing. You know how it is.  
  
Other Note: Feedback will be greeted with delight – It makes my cold, cold heart hop up and down in my (beautifully well-defined) chest. Requests for archivist's rights will be greeted with gratitude, and virtual homemade baked goods. Marriage proposals will be greeted with scorn, unless you bear a more than passing resemblance to Gina Gershon, Kurt Cobain or Eliza Dushku. Unmarked, non-sequential, used banknotes will be greeted with an open wallet and no questions asked.  
  
  
  
I: I am the Resurrection  
  
Don't waste your words  
  
I don't need anything from you  
  
I don't care where you've been or  
  
What you plan to do.  
  
  
  
'Brian?'  
  
'Betsy?'  
  
'What, exactly, is going on?'  
  
'I resurrected you. You see, Roma went crazy and I led an assault on the Otherworld, and now I'm ruler of the Omniverse, and Meggan decided that I was neglecting her and she needed some space, and I got so lonely up here alone –'  
  
'You – resurrected me?'  
  
'Well, yes. It was the least I could do, seeing as you'd just been killed. I left Vargas alive, by the way – I thought you'd want to get revenge for yourself. But could you stay here a while? Just until Meggan comes back?'  
  
There was a momentary pause, as Elizabeth Braddock, former Supermodel, Pilot, Secret Agent, Captain Britain, Ninja Assassin, X-Man and corpse, absorbed the monumental pigheadedness of her twin brother Brian, former Engineer, Athlete, Captain Britain, Alcoholic, Phoenix-Removing Plot Device and current Ruler of the Omniverse and Crappy Husband Extraordinaire. Then she took a few moments longer to absorb the facts that Vargas killed her, that she's back in her blonde British body, that she's a telepath and not a telekinetic, that the Shadow King is very definitely no longer contained within her head, and that her brother's wife has walked out on him and he has therefore resurrected her as a replacement.  
  
She decided to address the most important issue first.  
  
'And you're just sitting here, brooding, hoping for her to come back?'  
  
'No! No, I brought you here. As – as a temporary replacement.'  
  
'Alright. First of all, brother dear, I was dead, and, while I'm very happy to be alive, bringing me back definitely counts as contravening the natural order, in other words not living up to the responsibility of your newfound powers –' Brian looked like he was about to interrupt, and she held up a hand to forestall him. 'Second, if you for one moment meant that bit about replacing your wife in any way other than for companionship then, cosmic powers or none, I'll leave you singing soprano. And third, and most importantly, when the woman you love walks out on you, don't try and replace her, go out and win her back. She fell in love with you long before you noticed her – though what she saw in you is anybody's guess – and stayed with you through your drinking, so for her to feel neglected you must have been even more of an arse than your usual.' This harangue was seriously disconcerting Brian. 'So, take us both home, ask around her friends 'till you find where she is now, and then start wooing her.'  
  
Brian really could not think of any argument, and began meekly to comply. As the siblings walked towards the portal to Braddock Manor, the telepath latterly known as Psylocke was struck by an idea.  
  
'Also, if you're going to be busy ruling the Omniverse and romancing Meggan, and seeing as I'm now legally me again and no longer risking my life on a daily basis, you could hand over control of the family investments to me, couldn't you?'  
  
The portal glowed white briefly, and they were gone.  
  
  
  
It took Elizabeth Braddock the best part of a week to sort her life out. She had been dead, she discovered, for less than two months. For the first couple of days she had Brian hanging around her almost twenty-four/seven, so she bullied him into looking for Meggan. They promptly ran across the problem that, as far as he knew, his wife didn't have any friends except the former members of Excalibur, who could now be divided into dead, untraceable or with the X-Men (and Betsy didn't want to talk to them just yet). They were actually on the verge of giving up the whole idea for the moment, when Feron wandered through and commented that apparently Magik had been looking for Brian a couple of days before. After that it was fairly simple for Brian to use his recently gained powers to contact Limbo, and Amanda was able to point him towards some possible locations in the English countryside where Meggan might have gone to unwind and let herself feel more like herself. After that Elizabeth pretty much forced him to start touring the beauty spots of Britain with a picnic hamper and two tickets to the ballet of 'Romeo and Juliet'.  
  
Then there was the wardrobe. Brian had resurrected her almost exactly as she had been before her merging with Kwannon, with the additional bonus of hyping up her Fay half so that instead of being merely extremely long-lived and permanently youthful she was permanently ageless. Therefore, not only did all the clothes she had left in Braddock Manor still fit, they would continue to fit for as long as she kept in shape. The problem, though, was that they were the clothes of a fashion model, as of five and a half years previously. In 1996 they would have been perfect; in 2001 they just looked ridiculous.  
  
Then there were her old skills. In her most recent body she had casually neglected much of her training in espionage and intelligence work, as well as the various job skills of a professional clothes horse (which did include a working knowledge of French and Italian, as well as the ability to completely change her hairstyle in less than five minutes), in favour of the various martial arts abilities inherited from the assassin Kwannon. Unfortunately those abilities had come with that body which, though a similar height and weight, had had a rather different build. Betsy found that her current body, though strong and extremely healthy, lacked the coordination and fine muscular control of the previous one. She needed to retrain, badly.  
  
By the fifth day she had worked out a training program for herself to rebuild her old skills – she wasn't sure why, as she was, for the moment, happy to be retired from the superhero lifestyle (not that the action side wasn't fun – except when you got impaled on gigantic swords – or the travel fascinating, but the testosterone count around the mansion had been astounding lately, and she'd found herself in danger of becoming co- dependent), but it seemed the sensible thing to do – and decided that she needed to sort out some clothes. She considered starting simple, nipping in to the nearest town to visit a high street clothes shop or even going round to Oxfam (and dropping off all of her old outfits while she was at it). Instead, she called several of her favourite fashion designers and cordially invited them to drop everything and rush to accommodate the fabulously wealthy model who had just resurfaced after five years in the wilderness (she told them she'd needed space; they nodded and smiled and thought vicious thoughts, and she discreetly encouraged their supposition that she had actually been in rehab), and then drove herself round to visit an old friend from her STRIKE days, who agreed to make her several discreet sets of lightweight body armour – a girl can't be too careful, in this modern world.  
  
  
  
Eight days after her return from the dead, half an hour after receiving Brian and Meggan's postcard from Wakanda, Elizabeth Braddock switched on the television to catch the second half of the news, and saw her former lover, Warren Kenneth Worthington III, lecturing the G8 summit on mutancy.  
  
He was wearing, she noticed, a great suit.  
  
Always naturally inquisitive, she watched the broadcast in its entirety, and then went online to see what else she could find out about his recent movements. It wasn't that she wasn't utterly and completely over the blue- skinned stud, but she was interested in what had been up with the team while she had been in Spain, and then dead.  
  
Although she would not have admitted it, Betsy was lonely. Feron was no kind of companion, the manor hadn't retained a household staff since Brian moved out to the Otherworld, and all old friends were fashion models (and would have forgotten her in the last five years), STRIKE agents (and therefore far too paranoid to accept her reappearance) or X-Men. If she had had a Cerebro, she reflected, she could have located Kitty Pryde, her only independent friend, and she realised it was kind of pathetic that she really had no kind of life to come back to.  
  
The X-Men had become her life, but, more than that, the X-Men were her friends.  
  
She had been back more than a week, and they would still think she was dead. Her teammates would still be mourning her[1], Thunderbird would still be bereaved[2], and she still didn't know how Beast and Rogue were.  
  
She was astonished at how selfish she'd been. She might not rejoin them, but she should at least let them know.  
  
Unfortunately she had no idea how to find the Xtreme X-Men. They certainly weren't in Spain anymore, and her rudimentary hacking skills didn't get her close to finding where they'd ended up. Once more she found herself wishing for a Cerebro, and then wishing they hadn't fixed it so Cerebro couldn't find them. She'd thrown her computer chair across the room and demonstrated the fact that she'd already learned some basic Wing Chun on a handy partition wall before it occurred to her to take the indirect solution. It then occurred to her that the reason she'd been putting off thinking about it was that she simply didn't want to admit that that was what she wanted.  
  
It took her less than an hour to find out where Warren – and therefore his X-Men team – was staying, and she promptly ordered a first-class ticket to Paris. Psylocke was packed and ready to go in record time.  
  
  
  
Finding Warren's location was not difficult – it was the only corporate office block in Paris with a stealth jet parked on the roof. Getting in proved another matter entirely. The security staff, she realised quickly, had very specific instructions about admitting attractive young women claiming an 'interest' in their employer. After ten extremely frustrating minutes of half a dozen security guards trying to shove her out of the building (and cop a feel while they were at it), she resorted to projecting into their minds the belief that Archangel had ordered them to let her in.  
  
Before taking the lift, she did allow herself the satisfaction of kicking the most lecherous of them in the groin with finely calculated force. Then she went straight up to the penthouse.  
  
At the top she pushed past Chamber – who, she reminded herself, could have no idea who she was – and smiled at Iceman (who'd never really met her like this either, but had seen pictures as well as Revanche), who reacted by sitting down heavily. She moved over to the balcony – Warren always liked to be out in the open air – and stood watching her old paramour, who finished speaking on the 'phone and turned to see what the distraction was.  
  
His mouth fell open and stayed there.  
  
'Hey, Blue Angel.' She greeted him. 'Looks like I'm secretly a Summers after all.'  
  
It was, she reflected, one of her better entrances.  
  
----------------------- [1] Shyeah, right. Take a look at X-Treme X-Men 5+ to see how overcome with grief, guilt and vengeful anger at her killer Storm and company aren't. I mean, seriously, someone kills one of your friends you hunt him down and rip his entrails out through his arse. And if he's too much of a badass (and you're in the MU) you hire Deadpool, Belladonna (if she's alive this week) and Bullseye to do the job for you.  
  
[2] So bereaved he'll hop into bed with the first Australian megamutant to come his way. And to think I was beginning to like the scumball. 


	2. Shoot You Down

Authors Note: Okay, I'm taking some liberties with the relationship between T-Bird and Baywatch. This story is AU, people. Just go with it. And there will be some Betsy/Warren later, but they've both moved on at least a little since then, remember.  
  
I am still working on the Spy and the Outlaw, but this is writing real easy right now.  
  
  
  
II: Shoot You Down.  
  
1 I never wanted  
  
2 The Love that you showed me  
  
2.1 It started to choke me  
  
And how I wish I'd said,  
  
No too slow  
  
2.1.1 I couldn't take  
  
That too fast  
  
I want you to know.  
  
  
  
'Heather –'  
  
'Neal –'  
  
'Heather –.'  
  
'Neal – ooh.'  
  
*Gasp*  
  
*Moan*  
  
*Long, Drawn-Out, Shuddering Sigh*  
  
Long pause, as they recover their breath. 'You know you're really good at that?'  
  
'I had a good teacher.'  
  
'A good teacher?' Thunderbird has forgotten the Golden Rule: Never Bring Up The Ex. Especially when she was a beautiful, experienced, exotic Older Woman, and your new girlfriend may look like a rip-off of a certain recently deceased and mildly psychotic teammate, but actually has pretty much any power she wants. Fortunately, Lifeguard doesn't seem to mind. 'Well, I'm glad.' Probably because she never met Psylocke.  
  
'That's nice.' A new voice, emerging from the shadows by the suddenly open door. Neal is understandably shocked. 'It's good to know you've completely got over my bloody and painful murder at the hands of an evil villain.' The young Bengali leaps out of bed, even as the Australian girl yanks the covers over herself in a move so clichéd that under any other circumstances the newcomer would have burst out laughing.  
  
'Betsy?' Says Thunderbird in surprise.  
  
'Neal?' She replies, stepping out of the shadows.  
  
'How –'  
  
'Fairly simple once I had access to the X-Men's computer systems – you're still travelling on my funds, remember? Or do you mean, how am I still alive?' She steps out into the faint light from the window of the hotel room, and smiles. She's dressed carefully for this meeting; a trouser suit of understated elegance chosen to appeal to his insecurities, dark colours, and a silk scarf around her neck worn partly for the look of the thing and mostly because she's lately been re-familiarising herself with the half- dozen martial arts forms she knows that utilise a strip of cloth as a lethal weapon. It has the desired effect, as Thunderbird is rendered speechless.  
  
'You do recognise me, don't you? After all, we had that big argument when you went through my old photo albums and accused me of having an affair with a blonde Englishwoman?' She smiles nastily.  
  
'Betsy?'  
  
'Having the ruler of the Omniverse as a brother can be very useful, Neal. Especially when he's hopelessly needy and depressive.'  
  
'Neal?' Asks Heather from the bed. She's confused; Bishop made pointed mention of Psylocke on a couple of occasions, but when she asked Storm the only pictures she was shown depicted an exotic – and underdressed – purple- haired Japanese woman. She was envious, but at least the woman was dead.  
  
'Yes, Neal, aren't you going to introduce us? And put some clothes on, you look ridiculous.' Neal comes out of the rather awkward combat stance he had adopted when Psylocke first stepped forward, and grabs a pair of shorts.  
  
'Heather, this is Betsy. Betsy, Heather. Um –'  
  
'Lady Elizabeth Braddock, Psylocke.' She interrupts, striding regally past him to hold out a hand to the girl in his bed. 'Neal's girlfriend, last time I looked.' Heather simply stares at her. 'Of course, obviously I was wrong.' She turns. She may not have regained her former proficiency in unarmed combat, but she still remembers all the simple, brutal, dirty fighting techniques taught her in STRIKE. Neal has just pulled on a T- shirt, so she uses it as a handhold to pull him into a rather nasty head- butt, and then follows up with a lightning-swift palm strike to the centre of his chest, which hurls him backwards through the bedroom door to land on his back in the main room of the suite, gasping for breath. 'I suppose we should take a break.' She finishes, and walks after him.  
  
  
  
Bishop had been sleeping alone. There was nothing new about this – despite being a reasonably attractive man and an intelligent conversationalist, the massive time-displaced mutant had long ago learned paranoia instead of charm as a child, and had never bothered to fill in the gap. If recent events had gone rather differently, of course, he could have been sleeping beside a blue-haired Australian police detective, but unfortunately she had been beaten up by his teammate, Rogue, and was now in hospital. Bishop, as was the norm, slept alone with his paranoia.  
  
He was an exceptionally light sleeper.  
  
This is why when Psylocke decided to take out her recent frustrations and issues on her newly discovered rat bastard of an ex-boyfriend by slapping him around a bit, Bishop was the first member of the team to react, bursting out of his room with a gun in his hand that was, to the Englishwoman's experienced eye, much less gigantic than usual.  
  
Bishop, of course, had never existed in a time when she had worn this body, but he'd known Revanche, and made a point of studying past records, so he could instantly start to make guesses.  
  
'Psylocke?' He asked gruffly, pointing the gun at her, but keeping the safety-catch on.  
  
'Bishop?' She responded. 'Is there a problem?' A recovering Thunderbird managed to regain his feet, and she pivoted to drive a perfect roundhouse kick into the pit of his stomach. He went straight back down, and vomited violently. 'Whoops.' She smiled. 'I'd offer to pay the cleaning costs, but you're here on my money anyway. Would you mind pointing that substitute somewhere else?' He nodded.  
  
'Why are you back in your old body?'  
  
'Brian preferred me this way.' Thunderbird had forced himself to his hands and knees, so she moved behind him and drove a particularly evil kick home. Despite his near-legendary stoic demeanour, Bishop winced in sympathy. Neal started dry heaving.  
  
'Why are you –' He started, moving forward, but then stopped. Through the open door of Thunderbird's bedroom he could clearly see Lifeguard frantically pulling on her clothes. 'Ah.' He said.  
  
'Yeah.' Psylocke paused, considering whether or not to let her old lover back up before she hit him again. 'I haven't even had time to rot properly, and T-bone's at it like a crazed weasel with the first blonde to cross his path.'  
  
'You were dead, Betsy.' She had made up her mind, and kicked the gasping man carefully in the left kidney before replying to Bishop.  
  
'Death cannot stop True Love!' She declared melodramatically. 'I mean, we're X-Men. Didn't her realise he just had to wait a bit? Okay, so I actually had a corpse, but you would at least expect –' She was cut off rather abruptly by the arrival of Lifeguard, in armoured form, smashing in to her with slightly more than necessary force.  
  
  
  
This, Betsy reflected as she shoved the gold-skinned woman off her, was only adding insult to injury.  
  
'After all,' She said aloud as she smashed the more physically powerful woman's head through a handy coffee table, 'it's not like I was going to do anything to you. We've never met,' Lifeguard broke free, and through a punch, which Psylocke dodged easily, 'and presumably you've only come into the picture since I left.' She caught the other woman's wrist with her scarf and, using the extra leverage, threw her across the room to slam into the door of one of the other bedrooms. 'Whoops. Bishop, who's room is that?'  
  
'Rogue's.'  
  
'How is Rogue anyway?' Lifeguard was up and angry, not least at the way her opponent seemed to be ignoring her.  
  
'Fine.'  
  
'You mean she's sorted out her mental blocks[1], realised just how stupid and annoying her so-called 'relationship' with Gambit really is, and settled things with her mother?' Heather was up and circling, looking angry but also cautious.  
  
'No, actually she and Gambit seem to be back together. Again.'  
  
'Silly girl.' Betsy unleashed a not-quite-precisely controlled jab which struck Lifeguard slightly too hard in the eye. Fortunately, this just meant that it hurt her in spite of her armour. 'You know, if you'd asked,' and now she was addressing Neal, who was curled up on the floor in a tight ball of pain and misery, 'I'd have been perfectly happy to dress up in tinfoil and speak with a Russian accent in bed. If you'd mentioned this back when Piotr was actually still alive – well, a boyfriend might have been enough to stop him killing himself. But no, you have to keep your Colossus fetish secret until you meet a blonde.' There was a sudden rush from said blonde, and Betsy spun Heather Cameron round her body and then threw her through a nearby partition wall.  
  
The gold-skinned woman dragged herself upright. 'Lifeguard, stand down. She's a friend.' Suggested Bishop. At this, Betsy found herself fighting giggles for the second time that evening. It really didn't suit her current 'woman scorned' mindset.  
  
'Lifeguard? The pneumatic blonde is called Lifeguard?' She looked down at herself, and then tugged on a lock of her own hair. 'Of course, I keep forgetting that I'm hardly entitled to talk about that sort of thing.' Lifeguard herself still looked angry, but was at least hesitating. She finished pulling herself out of the wall, and as she did so a carefully controlled voice called out from behind her.  
  
'Heather? What is happening out there?'  
  
Smiling, Betsy flung open the door nearest her recent opponent, and greeted the speaker – Storm, one of her oldest friends on the Xtreme team – and her companion – a male version, she realised, of Thunderbird's new paramour.  
  
'Not you, too!' She declared in surprise.  
  
Bishop found he could no longer control himself. He smiled.  
  
  
  
'So tell me,' Betsy asked half an hour later, once Sage, Rogue and Gambit had also been roused and Thunderbird had been somewhat patched up, 'why haven't you punished Vargas?'  
  
There was a slightly embarrassed silence.  
  
'De homme is fast, chere.' Gambit pointed out. 'Gambit could not take him.'  
  
'Can he dodge lightning?' The English telepath asked him sweetly. 'Or was Ororo too busy with her new toyboy to find out?' It seemed that Davis was about to say something at that, but Storm held up a hand to forestall him.  
  
'I am sorry, Elizabeth. I panicked. We should have made a greater effort to stop him.'  
  
'So why didn't you?' Storm paused, looking uncomfortable for a moment.  
  
'If you remember, Elizabeth, we were underground, and I am – not comfortable under such circumstances.'  
  
'And afterwards? You've got the world's most efficient telepath here, and you didn't try to find him?'  
  
'After what he did to you, it was felt that Vargas was too great a threat for the rest of us to face in our weakened circumstances.' Psylocke looked at her for a long moment, and then smiled.  
  
'I've just had a wonderful idea.' She said happily.  
  
'What is it?' Bishop asked.  
  
'A way for me to get revenge on at least one of the two people I hate most in the world right now. And, no offence, but I really don't feel like telling any of you about it.' She stood up and walked away.  
  
'Will you not need help?' Ororo asked behind her. She had followed her old friend to the door. Betsy turned to face her.  
  
'Ororo, my brother is ruler of the Omniverse and I control one of the largest corporations in Britain. What help could I possibly need from you?'  
  
'We are your friends, Elizabeth.'  
  
Psylocke looked past her at the battered Neal Sharra and the bruised Heather Cameron.  
  
'Yes. I used to think so, too.' She said, and walked out.  
  
----------------------- [1] You know, the ones that stop her controlling her powers? Carol Danvers in Rogue's body was able to touch Betsy just fine back in Australia, and Xavier had precise control of what was taken back when they were fighting the Shadow King, but Rogue still seems incapable of getting over herself. Sigh. I miss the 1980s (which, let's face it, says some very bad things about me. Especially as I was only eight when the decade ended). 


	3. Interlude: She Bangs The Drums

Authors Note: This is just an examination of a little history, and possibly an explanation for the motivations of Betsy as written by Wallace.  
  
Continuity Note: This'll be splintering off around Uncanny 403/New X-Men 120/Xtreme X-Men 9. I've messed with some stuff before then as well, for various reasons (read: plot devices). Also, I was born in 1981; most of the pre-Nimbo stuff I've read is what's in the Trade Paperbacks I could lay hands on. I may have missed out or got wrong lots of stuff.  
  
Age Note: Psylocke is pushing 35 in my world. The first generation X-Men are a couple of years younger, most other characters are a little more spread out, and remember that Betsy is half-Fay, and therefore half (or more than half, thanks to Brian) immortal. Also, take a look at Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch – they really don't look fifty years old, do they?  
  
  
  
Interlude: She Bangs The Drums  
  
The past was yours  
  
But the future's mine  
  
You're all out of time  
  
I don't feel too steady on my feet  
  
I feel hollow I feel weak  
  
Passion fruit and holy bread  
  
Fill my guts and ease my head  
  
Through the early morning sun  
  
I can see her here she comes  
  
She bangs the drums.  
  
  
  
As she relaxes on the plane back to Britain, Elizabeth Braddock takes the time to wonder just who she thinks she is.  
  
She's used to being someone specific – Psylocke, the distinctively purple- haired Ninja in unnecessarily skimpy clothing (and, god, she felt like wearing big knickers for the rest of her life after that), lover of Archangel or of Thunderbird, the 'New Boy' (and neither of them were the best choice in the world), the oversexed X-Man, and the unethical telepath.  
  
Now, of course, none of this holds true. She could still call herself Psylocke if she so chose – after all, she took that name when she still wore this form, before she joined the X-Men, before even the loss of her eyes – but that name conjures up images of the assassin Kwannon and the near-assassin she became – precision violence and intense physicality, sensual in combat because combat is about the senses, crude and brutal in the use of her formerly beautiful psionic abilities. Elizabeth Braddock had a butterfly; Psylocke wielded a psychic knife.  
  
Out of curiosity more than anything else, she reaches out with her mind and tries to form the butterfly once more; it's awkward. It's been too long. Elizabeth closes her eyes and lets her consciousness slip outwards, feeling the minds around her, living in the beat of a butterfly's wing. Her mind is the chrysalis, and she lets the wings spread outward from it, brushing lighter than a feather across the intelligences of every other person on this aircraft. She feels anxiety and wonder, fear and boredom. Just to see if she can, she finds the mind of the co-pilot and slides smoothly through the layers of consciousness, watching as he helps fly the plane.  
  
It's been a long time since she flew a plane, she reflects as she slips back out again. The young man is unaware she was ever near.  
  
She didn't need to with telekinesis, of course. She won't miss much about those powers, but everyone loves to fly. Not for the first time she finds herself wondering at the Shi'ar, whose evolution took away their wings, and comparing them to humanity, for whom flight is a unifying dream, and finally to Warren Worthington, the Angel and Archangel, to whom that dream was life.  
  
Warren lost his wings, she knows, and that almost destroyed him. Then he was altered by Apocalypse. He became a killing machine. He became the man she fell in love with.  
  
How much of what she became was actually Kwannon? It's a recurring theme in her life; are her actions her own? Would she have been drawn to the blue- skinned man with the weapons on his back if she had not herself felt twisted, freakish? Would they still be together if his feathers had not returned? Would she have flirted so heavily with Neal?  
  
Betsy has a horrible feeling that she forced Warren to dump her because she no longer felt him man enough for her. When she met him, he was dangerous. When she met him, he was Death of the Horsemen, a lethal device that could dance in the air with her.  
  
When she met him it had all seemed so simple.  
  
Chalk it up to hormones. She could blame Kwannon, but she joined with the X- Men for hormones in the first place – her attraction (slightly perverse, but still honest and easy) for Douglas Ramsey. A beautiful boy, intelligent and wise beyond his years, but in many ways just a little naïve and childlike. Exactly the type of boy the fairies are supposed to steal away. After him had been Warren, the brave prince under a curse, and then Neal – 'A lovely boy, stol'n from an Indian King'[1] – or at least from a Bangladeshi Police chief. They were all three beautiful. Warren had been arrogant and selfish – but then, so had she – and Neal, as she had just discovered, was really too young, too immature, for her (and what could be more juvenile than her reaction?).  
  
She missed Doug. Their relationship had been awkward – there was shared attraction, and she could respect his intelligence and sincerity while he was awed by her beauty and experience, but neither of them had been able to get past the thirteen-year age gap. If they could have, though –  
  
The temptation has always been there for her, to find a young man and train him, to make him her own private gigolo. She's rich, beautiful and experienced – any young man would consider himself lucky to be chosen by her. Douglas Ramsey would have given her his love, his trust, his virginity, and in exchange she would have given him –  
  
A little affection, tempered with her innate sense of superiority. Gifts, financial support, her body. Eventually, grief, as her affection for him faded with his youth, letting her move on to other lovers.  
  
She had chosen not to do that to him, had stayed alone until she met Warren. That had been different. He had been older, experienced (proud), self-confident (arrogant) and beautiful (vain). Perhaps more important she had been in the body of Kwannon then (except that it was still her body, changed by magic). The Fay are forever young, forever beautiful – Mutants merely age well and tend to stay healthy. She had felt that they could be equals in their relationship.  
  
And then he had lost the metal wings of Death, and Thunderbird had appeared, and she had abandoned her now humble, frightened, lover, who was still too proud to admit his weaknesses, and done with Neal what she had resisted the temptation to do with Cypher.  
  
He had kept up with her – he was neither so innocent as Doug, nor as understanding. Doug could read her body language and emotional state by instinct. Neal had seen lust and affection and accepted and reciprocated them. She had not needed to keep him or teach him – he had money and experience of his own, and he used them to romance her.  
  
Except that he had romanced her not because he wanted her to feel loved, but because he felt it was his duty as the man, as the dominant, in their relationship. Warren danced with her because he enjoyed dancing with beautiful women – selfish, but honest. Neal danced with her because he saw it as a reasonable step towards bedding her. Of course, he'd hardly needed it – it's easy to be easy when it's someone else's body.  
  
  
  
Psylocke had gone from Warren to Neal, from the weakened Angel to the powerful Thunderbird – because she felt the need to escape a relationship that had become boring and stifling. It is only now, almost a year after the event, that it occurs to Betsy that she really didn't need a new relationship. Yet it seemed that all of the X-Men were defined by their partners or lack of same. Logan and Storm, the teams two long-term singletons (although Ororo no longer fitted that category) were seen as loners, while she and Warren, Scott and Jean, even Gambit and Rogue, were clearly defined couples. There had been others, of course – Hank's fluctuating relationship with Trish Tilby (Warren had told her that was over, at the instigation of the lady), Bobby's string of failed romances (which were no more than the others expected of him), the nonrelationship of Kitty and Piotr (she'd heard that Kitty had had an affair with Wisdom, whom she remembered as a particularly callous black ops specialist but was apparently now reformed), and even the strange crazy/shy flirtation between Marrow and Cannonball. She and Warren had been one of the most stable of these, despite their massive problems.  
  
It was Kwannon, she decides. Her body changed, and her desires changed with it. She knows that everything you do is a part of who you are, and the person she was before the Siege Perilous had many faults, but she had resisted the temptation of Douglas Ramsey and would have resisted the temptation of Neal Sharra. She would have been happy single. She is happy single.  
  
Even so, she decides as she opens her eyes and sees the butterfly floating before her, she does owe herself another chance at a sex life. It's only healthy.  
  
And Warren does look so very good in a suit.  
  
----------------------- [1] Property of the estate of W Shakespeare. Precise reference is A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II Scene 1, if you're really interested. 


	4. Bye Bye Badman

I don't know what canon on Betsy and Pete is, but I'm assuming that they haven't met while connected to the X-teams, but were acquainted with each other through mutual contacts in the British intelligence community. This is my AU, my denial, live with it.  
  
As always, Feedback is my drug.  
  
Oh, and, Luba, this gratuitous insertion of Pete is just for you.  
  
  
  
III: Bye Bye Badman  
  
You've been bought and paid  
  
You're a whore and a slave  
  
Your docks not a holy shrine  
  
Come taste the end you're mine.  
  
  
  
'Braddock.'  
  
'Wisdom.'  
  
'Been a while.'  
  
'Six years. It seems longer, doesn't it?'  
  
'Heard you were dead.'  
  
'As Logan likes to say, I got better. Come to that, I heard you were dead.'  
  
'So how'd you find me?'  
  
'I borrowed a portable Cerebro from the X-Men's Away Team. Dead men don't have brainwaves.'  
  
'So why'd you come looking for me?'  
  
'If the rest of X-Force was alive, why not you?'  
  
'So what did you look for me for?'  
  
'I need someone killed.'  
  
'I'm retired. I gave up that kind of stuff when I joined up with your wanker brother and his lot.'  
  
'That's fine, because I don't want you as an assassin. I have someone very specific in mind for the job, and for personal reasons I don't want them to know it's me hiring them.'  
  
'So, who's the target and who do you want to do the hit?'  
  
'The target is a man named Vargas. There is – little information on him, but with what there is it should be possible to find him.' She passes a folder across, and he studies it – a couple of drawings, some notes and maps – basic stuff.  
  
'Not much to work with. You'd better have someone seriously talented in mind for the job.'  
  
'Victor Creed.'  
  
*Koff* 'Bloody –' *Choke*. She's never seen anyone inhale a lit cigarette before. It's quite interesting, and under other circumstances she would watch and maybe take notes, but because he's her best chance she moves round and gives the man a couple of slaps on the back. It takes a moment or two, but he recovers.  
  
'Sabertooth? Christ on a crutch, do you have any idea who you're talking about?'  
  
'I should do. He eviscerated me, once.'  
  
'And now you want him to kill this Vargas bloke for you?'  
  
'Vargas killed me. I honestly don't know if Creed would be able to kill him, but whoever wins, I'm happy.'  
  
'But – Sabertooth?' He lights another cigarette, his hands rock steady. 'Listen, Braddock, it'd be no great loss if Creed did go down – but I haven't lived this long by double-crossing his type.'  
  
'No double cross. He has a job. If he fails – that's his fault.'  
  
'No. Seriously, Braddock, what has helped me live this long is that I've never gone anywhere near Victor Creed, and I don't intend changing that.' She swings her briefcase on to the table and unlocks it. 'This isn't about the money –' He trails off; the case apparently holds no money, but simply another file. 'What's that?'  
  
'Kitty Pryde's current home address.' He stares at her for a moment, and then disbelief clouds his features.  
  
'Nice try, Braddock. I heard that Professor bloke wiped her from his computers, fixed it so Cerebro couldn't find her.'  
  
'Very true. But, you know? He somehow forgot to do the same for the walking patch of psionic invisibility that characterises her pet dragon.'  
  
'So, what – I hire Sabertooth as an intermediary, you give me that file, and I just crawl back to her and beg her to take me back?'  
  
'Why not?'  
  
'Because I dumped her is why not.'  
  
'Then go apologise. It's fairly simple. Personally I was actually quite glad to see Kitty managing to be on her own for once, but whatever her reaction to your return, I can't help but feel it'll be a learning experience for her.'  
  
'Your suggesting I just turn up at . . . wherever she is and say, wotcha, Pryde, sorry about the screaming fit and nasty breakup, please forgive me because I'm still the man you . . . well, you know.'  
  
'Did you know Colossus is dead?'  
  
A pause. 'No. How'd it happen?'  
  
'He killed himself curing the Legacy Virus.'  
  
'That's . . . noble of the wanker. How'd she take it?'  
  
'Fairly well, considering she was in love with him for three or four years – and it was love, Pete, I lived in her mind for weeks and saw that. Kitty is in some ways a very emotional woman. She controls it well, but she doesn't play around.'  
  
'Yeah. I'd noticed. You think that makes it easier, though?'  
  
'Now that her previous love has engaged in heroic self-sacrifice, reminding her of all the good parts of their long-ago almost-relationship? Now that she's trying to avoid the danger and excitement that you personify? No, Wisdom, it won't be easy. When was life ever?'  
  
'Point taken. But still, I can't just . . . and what about when she asks how I found her?'  
  
'Tell her I gave you her address with instructions to apologise. If you like, suggest that I sent you simply to let her know I'm alive – although she might not yet have heard about my death.'  
  
'You think it'll work?'  
  
'Does it matter? As I understand it, whatever else, you owe Katherine an apology.'  
  
'Suppose so.' Wisdom reaches, slightly hesitantly, for the file. She holds on to it.  
  
'And your side of the deal?'  
  
'I'll find him, and make him an offer.' She slips the files into the briefcase, and slides it across to him. Then she writes him a cheque.  
  
'You'll have to find the cash yourself, I'm afraid. Creed wrestled with me a few years back, and he might remember my scent.' He nods, and stands to leave. 'Oh, and Wisdom? What's Nick Fury's current home phone number?'  
  
  
  
When she gets back to her London apartment Elizabeth is rather surprised to see Wolverine sitting on her front doorstep.  
  
'Logan.' She says. 'This is a pleasant surprise.'  
  
'Betts.' He answers, and stands up as she reaches to unlock the door.  
  
'Business or personal?' She asks him conversationally, leading the way inside.  
  
'Wings was wondering if you're doing anything right now.' He tells her.  
  
'He wants me on the team? I suppose I should be flattered – more or less untried, an unknown quantity.'  
  
'He says.'  
  
'Indeed?'  
  
'Boy's got regrets, Betsy. He ain't perfect, but nor is anybody.'  
  
'I'll think about it.' Logan nods, and turns towards the door. 'Would you like to have supper with me tonight?'  
  
'Sorry, Betts. Business.' And he is gone.  
  
  
  
Is she going to go back to the team? Elizabeth was seriously considering it, at least on a part-time basis (if such a thing proved possible). And Warren? All other things being equal she would probably not have even considered restarting a relationship with him, but while returning to the X- Men would not necessarily mean returning to him, it would necessitate a serious talk about their relationship.  
  
Who did she want to become now?  
  
Certainly not the second half of Warren and Betsy once again (although being half of Betsy and Warren might not be so bad). Nor did she want to be the decorative girlfriend of either a millionaire playboy or a photogenic superhero. However, some things could not be designed – she was a fabulously wealthy and exceptionally beautiful telepath, expert in espionage and martial arts, with contacts all over the world. All this left her qualified for very little besides putting on a costume and using her superpowers, for good or evil (the great big gap in her past would not exactly help her with more mundane employers, in any case), and she certainly wasn't going to attempt a reconciliation with her old lover until she'd worked out exactly what she was doing. The last time she had attempted working as a solo operative it had led to . . . she preferred not to think on that. The Slaymaster was dead, she was alive, and she had a perfectly good set of fully organic eyes now, thank you very much Brian. She would have to join a team, and the X-Men new her rather too well for her comfort. With the demise of X-Force and X-Factor that left only two possibilities; she could apply to join the Avengers (who, after all, lacked a telepath), or form her own team, a replacement for Excalibur.  
  
Somehow, something like a new version of Excalibur seemed far more appealing than asking to work alongside Captain America (she'd had far too much of that kind of costume), or with a team that might at any moment find itself opposing the X-Men. Europe could really use a resident superteam of its very own – after all, it had far more than it's fair share of problems. There were plenty of potential sources of personnel, too – the recently collapsed X-Corps, the survivors of X-Force (if she could track them down), even one or two former members of Excalibur still knocking about (although she somehow doubted she'd be inviting Feron aboard anytime soon). Switching on Brian's old computer, she opened up the 'phone book. She had a lot of calls to make, and while her second priority was to find a team leader, her first was to secure the approval of the international authorities – hopefully, complete with a reliable source of funds.  
  
Pulling out the slip of paper Pete Wisdom had given her, she dialled Nick Fury. 


	5. This is the One

IV: This is the One  
  
1.1.1 I'd like to leave the country  
  
For a month of Sundays  
  
Burn the town where I was born  
  
If only she'd believe me  
  
Belladonna Belladonna  
  
Burn me out or bring me home.  
  
  
  
'Archangel here.'  
  
'Warren? How's the cleanup going?'  
  
'Moderately well. We've managed to get most of the insurrectionists into SHIELD custody. Sean and Jubilee have left the country.'  
  
'Any idea where they're headed?'  
  
'England. Separately.'  
  
'England? Why?'  
  
'Betsy made them an offer they liked.'  
  
'. . .'  
  
'Scott?'  
  
'Betsy? Psylocke's alive?'  
  
'Erm, yes. I thought Bobby would have told you.'  
  
'How?'  
  
'The same way I'm talking to you now; telephone. It's a wonderful invention, Scott. And I know he calls in weekly to talk to Hank.'  
  
'No, I mean . . . How is Betsy alive?'  
  
'Apparently her brother somehow resurrected her. She actually wasn't very forthcoming – not evasive, just not really interested in talking about it. She went off to see Storm and company, and then came back to Britain. She and Nick Fury have been putting together a new team as a successor to Excalibur and X-Corps. It's all in the latest report.'  
  
'Warren, I called because your status report is a day overdue. Who did you leave it too?'  
  
'Chamber. But I watched him send it.' A pause, as the too men consider the unreliability of E-Mail, especially when the intended recipient is in the middle of a planetary war with some seriously high-tech aliens. 'I'll have him send another copy immediately.'  
  
'You can give me the priority information now.' Warren pushed his chair back, and stretched his wings a little.  
  
'Well, it turned out that X-Corps needed to give the impression that they were rehabilitating mutant criminals, so they were using . . .'  
  
'I meant about Betsy.'  
  
'Oh. She's alive. She doesn't want to rejoin the X-Men. Hang on, Wolverine spoke to her almost a week ago. He didn't tell you either?'  
  
'He did not.' Scott sounded rather grim, Warren noticed. He really didn't like being kept out of the loop. 'Tell me, Archangel, is there anyone aside from me who didn't know Psylocke was back?'  
  
'The rest of your team? Look, I'm sorry, Scott, but with everything that's been going on it just didn't seem that important. Let's face it, an X-Man returning from the dead is hardly news. We've all done it, at some point or another. Well, except Jono and Stacey, and they haven't been with us long enough.'  
  
'I suppose . . . you have a point. What about this new Excalibur? I really can't see Betsy as a team leader?'  
  
'It's not a new Excalibur, Scott, and that's not just Betsy trying to be original. It's going to be a fairly small-scale operation with a similar remit to X-Corps, operating under SHIELD control. Its purpose will be to contain and control metahuman-related incidents in western Europe. The intent is to work in close cooperation with the national governments and European parliament while retaining autonomy.'  
  
'Betsy started this?'  
  
'I think Nick Fury provided that part of the manifesto. She's invited Sean to help organise it, presumably in the hopes that he'll learn from his mistakes. She hasn't tried to poach any of my team, yet, but they are actively recruiting. The team is ging to be called Maze, apparently, though what that means is anybody's guess.'  
  
'It might be an idea to send an infiltrator, possibly Chamber or Nightcrawler . . .'  
  
'Scott. This is Nick Fury and Psylocke we're talking about. I doubt they have a secret agenda for doing horrible things to mutants. You're taking paranoia to a dangerous extreme, and as I understand it you could use our help back at the mansion in any case. Besides which, Maze isn't halfway organised yet. If they are going to do any harm, it won't be for another couple of months. Give it a rest.'  
  
There is a pause on the other end of the line, then.  
  
'Warren, I would have thought you'd have no objections to seeing Betsy.'  
  
'To seeing the girl I dumped five months ago? To rehashing the best relationship I've managed since Apocalypse turned me into a monster? Besides, these days X-Men only date other X-Men, and Betsy's no longer one of us.'  
  
  
  
If you want something done right, you do it yourself, but if you want it done perfectly, with high security, state of the art technology, and serious flair of the eye-patch and cigar kind, there's only one organisation to work with. SHIELD had wasted no time exerting certain kinds of pressure on the right people, and after just one short week the legislation empowering X-Corps had been transferred to them, several large accounts had been set up, a dozen clerks were working full-time organising the bureaucratic structure of Maze, and construction work had begun on the new headquarters – or rather, remodelling work, because Elizabeth had specifically requested that they be leased the site and structure of the long-disused Battersea Power Station as their base.  
  
The work had some way to go, though, and so for the moment she and Sean were sharing an office in a portacabin just outside the massive building, and it was there that Bishop found her.  
  
'I am no longer an X-Man.' He told her simply, but there was clearly more than this upsetting him.  
  
  
  
Madripore was a ruin, a quarter of the population dead and almost all of them homeless. The Avengers had begun organising relief efforts, but Storm was already planning their next destination. For the moment, Bishop, Rogue, Thunderbird and Lifeguard had been assisting in the rescue work, digging through rubble and wandering through houses in search of the bodies, dead or injured.  
  
Bishop entered one house alone, alert mostly for the possibility of falling masonry rather than an attack. As it turned out he needed fear neither.  
  
The room he entered stank of blood. It lay sticky on the floor and had splashed across the walls and ceiling in great gouts. And against the walls of the room lay the two bodies from which it had come. Both were still alive.  
  
Sabretooth's left arm had been severed at the elbow, his opponent's blade slicing along the adamantium bone before tearing through at the joint. This, along with the massive gashes that had been slashed in his face, torso and right arm, had almost been enough to override his healing factor, but he was already recovering when Bishop arrived.  
  
Opposite him lay Vargas, his sword still clutched in one hand, the other used to hold in his guts. He, too, was healing; not as swiftly as Sabretooth, but his injuries were less severe.  
  
As Bishop entered, both turned their heads to look at him, twin expressions of recognition, hatred and contempt rising on their faces. The time-lost policeman had glanced from one to the other, and then reached instinctively for the restraint cuffs he still carried as a matter of course.  
  
And then, very deliberately, he had instead drawn the blaster pistol that was his final resort in combat.  
  
He had fired three shots in rapid succession through Sabretooth's right eye, watching as contempt turned to fear in the fraction of a second the man-beast remained aware. After the third shot blood was running from Sabretooth's mouth and ears, and after a few more moments his heart had finally stopped beating and his wounds were no longer healing. Then Bishop turned to Vargas.  
  
Psylocke's killer was still too badly injured to put up a proper fight, but despite being barely able to move, he had pushed himself up against the wall and managed to raise his sword in both hands. Unlike Creed, he was unafraid, even seeing his fate.  
  
'Kill me and you will never find the diaries.' He had told Bishop.  
  
Bishop blew his face apart.  
  
'Someone else will.' He had told the corpse.  
  
Then the former X-Man and double murderer named Lucas Bishop had walked away.  
  
  
  
'What did Storm say?' Betsy asked him.  
  
'I did not wait to ask. The X-Men spare their enemies; sometimes they even manage to rehabilitate them. They do not execute them in cold blood.' He stood as if to leave.  
  
'Bishop?'  
  
'I made myself their judge.' He told her, and then walked out of her office.  
  
She later heard that he had turned himself in to SHIELD, for double murder.  
  
Sabretooth and Vargas were both dead. Psylocke was revenged, and Bishop was destroyed.  
  
  
  
The construction of the Metahuman Affairs Section for Europe was a lot more complicated than Psylocke had expected when she had first pitched the idea to Fury. In this respect Sean was a godsend, working through his depression to work through local and international law, reactivating contacts in Interpol and in lower-level law enforcement, and negotiate authority from the various governments. Elizabeth was left in charge of recruiting the strike team, for which she attempted to focus on Europeans – with SHIELD still seen as a tool of American Globalism across much of the continent, it would be important that the MASE be seen as representative of the localities.  
  
She acquired no recruits from the former Soviet countries, but that was little matter as their remit extended only across Western Europe. Most of X- Corps had picked the wrong side, and were currently either imprisoned or fugitives; nonetheless, one or two were essentially mercenaries who had seized the main chance, and might still be worth considering. France and Germany had their more useful mutants organised into government-controlled teams that served as supplements to the security forces, and these looked to be potentially the most valuable pools, with both governments making tentative offers of 'volunteers'.  
  
Her most enthusiastic recruit, of course, was Jubilee.  
  
'You are not going to be a field agent.' She told the girl early on in their newfound association.  
  
'Same way I wasn't an active member of the X-Men back when you and me and Wolvie took on the Hand.' Jubilee had answered. 'Face it, Betts, you're stuck with me.'  
  
'SHIELD is a rather more formal organisation than the X-Men ever were. There is no way a sixteen-year-old girl will be allowed on missions, even as a sidekick.'  
  
'Sean sent me on missions for X-Corps.'  
  
'X-Corps broke down, if you recall.'  
  
'Yeah, but it worked for a bit. Y'know, until it fell apart 'cause of Mystique. And I was the youngest active team member.'  
  
'So you keep telling me.'  
  
'What I'm saying, Betts, is that the Seanster reckoned I was good enough to go in the field. He's been training and observing me for nearly three years. Why don't you trust his judgement on this?'  
  
'After all, his judgement in other recruits proved so reliable.'  
  
'That wasn't his fault, and if you thought it was there's no way you'd have asked him to help you out with this. Trust me, Betts. I've been doing this since I was thirteen.'  
  
'Which was only three years ago, making you still far too young, whatever way you present it.'  
  
And so it went on. Elizabeth had a bad feeling that sooner or later she'd give in just to get the girl to shut up. She couldn't deny the girls usefulness – she was dedicated, extremely powerful, and right now Sean's main emotional crutch – he couldn't let himself fall apart in front of one of his 'angels'.  
  
The big surprise, though, had been the arrival of Pryde and Wisdom, who just walked through the door of the office the week after Bishop's departure – literally through, naturally, as security was reasonably tight.  
  
'Anything we can do to help out?' Wisdom asked. Managing – by a supreme effort – to conceal her surprise at their arrival, Betsy sat back in her chair and smiled.  
  
'Actually, yes. We're short a combat trainer and a field leader. Wisdom, your girlfriend can tag along if she promises not to kill any of the other team members.'  
  
'Am I likely to?'  
  
'Not right now, but after a few days in this madhouse you'll want to.' She stood up and walked round her desk to embrace the younger woman. 'It's wonderful to see you, Kitty, and I'm not just speaking as a friend. I've got a dozen pan-European prima donnas, the French are insisting the team be bilingual, and the Special Forces personnel are playing intimidatory games with the reformed criminals. While I hate to hang on the X-Men's shirttails, it can't be denied that they produce good team players.'  
  
'I don't know, Betsy. You're not exactly the greatest example . . .'  
  
'Kitty, smile and say nice things to the rich lady who's going to pay us lots of money.'  
  
  
  
It was four days later that Bishop returned. 


	6. Sugar Spun Sister

V: Sugar Spun Sister  
  
It takes all of these things and all that time  
  
'Till my sugar spun sister's happy  
  
With this love of mine.  
  
1.1 It'll take all of these things and, oh, so much more  
  
  
  
'Brian?'  
  
'Mmm?'  
  
'This has been wonderful.' He sits up at that; it doesn't sound like she's leading anywhere good.  
  
'But?'  
  
'But nothing. It's just been wonderful to get away from it all for a month.'  
  
'Oh.' He settles down once more. They're currently enjoying a relaxing holiday four realities over from their own.  
  
'Whose idea was it?' He wakes straight back up.  
  
'What?'  
  
'This second honeymoon? You weren't just guilty about me when you found me.'  
  
'Whose idea was it?'  
  
'That's what I asked.'  
  
'Well . . . I suppose it was really Betsy's. She, well, she just ordered me to go find you.'  
  
'Remind me to do something nice for her when we get back. Have you done something to say thank you?'  
  
'Well . . . I resurrected her? That has to count, doesn't it?'  
  
'Didn't you resurrect her before she gave you your marching orders?'  
  
'Well, yes.'  
  
'So you should do something else for her.'  
  
'Like what?'  
  
'I don't know. What does she want?'  
  
'I have no idea. Like most women, my dear sister is a closed book to me.'  
  
'Oh. What does she need, then?'  
  
' . . . I have no idea.'  
  
'You've known her all your life, Brian. Surely you've picked up something about her? What's she doing these days?'  
  
'These days?' He frowns. As ruler of the Omniverse he is possessed of almost godlike power in any earth-realm, and focussing between realities to acquire a little knowledge is child's play. Or at least, it will be with a little practice; as it is, he gains a slight headache. 'She's an Agent of SHIELD, helping run a new European task force dealing with superpower- related crimes.' Off Meggan's look, he elaborated. 'She's still a superhero, but with official recognition.'  
  
'Hmmf.'  
  
'I could always just ask her, I suppose.'  
  
'You could.' She paused for a moment. 'You need to talk to her anyway, remember?'  
  
  
  
'You know, Nick, I'd love to say that I absolutely love this job, but I really didn't anticipate the sheer volume of paperwork.' Betsy commented as her superior entered her office. 'Is this a spot check or something?'  
  
'Actually, more paperwork.' He grinned nastily. She shoved an ashtray towards him, and after a momentary pause he stubbed his cigar out.  
  
'What is it now?'  
  
'We're releasing Bishop into your custody.'  
  
Betsy stared at him in disbelief.  
  
'Agent Braddock, in your capacity as personnel director of the Maze, will you accept custody of the prisoner?' His tone was one of absolute formality.  
  
'Not that I don't appreciate it, Ni-sir, but why this sudden leniency?'  
  
'If he'd just killed Creed I'd be diverting SHIELD funds to buy him a Porsche.' Growled Fury. 'The problem is the other character, Vargas. We found the bodies exactly where he said they'd be. They were both extremely dead, and with his confession that should have spelled instant transferral to the Vault.'  
  
'But?'  
  
'Beyond a description of a guy who killed a whole bunch of Spanish police, we've got no idea who this Vargas character is. No-one's claimed the body, his fingerprints and DNA aren't on record, and no-one with an even vaguely similar state fits both the description and the fact that he's currently dead.'  
  
'In other words, he doesn't exist?'  
  
'Exactly. Until we know who he was we can't confirm or dismiss the possibility of mitigating circumstances. Also, his DNA is weird.'  
  
'Weird?'  
  
'We've got no idea whether he's even human. So far as we know he could be some kind of alien or subhuman, not currently protected under any known international law. All we've got Bishop on is being a member of an outlaw organisation, and since he's not likely to admit to any details of his time with the X-Men putting him on trial is an iffy prospect. On the other hand, he's your friend and a certifiable good guy. We should use him, and if the X-Men are anything like I remember you've spent a lot of time training together. You accept custody?'  
  
'Yes. What are the terms?'  
  
'He's attached and accredited to Maze, on permanent probation. No solo missions, no going out without a full agent. He lives in the headquarters, and he wears a tracer whenever he's outside the compound.'  
  
'Have you talked to him about this?'  
  
'He doesn't get a choice. I told him, and he didn't argue.' He slammed a wad of paper on the desk. 'Sign the top of each sheet, and initial the date.' As she did so he reached into a pocket. 'He's wearing a suppressor collar and a tracer armband. Here are the keys. You want me to bring him up here?'  
  
'Immediately.' She replied, grabbing the keys.  
  
  
  
It took just one short month for the new agency to establish itself. Work would continue on the headquarters for some time to come, of course, and the personnel were not up to full strength – while approximately one third were seconded direct from SHIELD itself, the remainder were intended to be recruited from the police, military and intelligence organisations of the seven initially participating countries.  
  
It was, Elizabeth had emphasized to Fury from the very beginning, very important that they should not be seen as a group either of vigilantes or of metahumans – publicity was going to be very important. Instead Maze was to be an intelligence organisation that recruited mutants and nonmutants alike, according to its needs, and had an initial target of no more than one third of its personnel being mutants of any class.  
  
Fury had responded by making her Chief of Personnel.  
  
The job brought with it a hefty salary, a position in the hierarchy just below the director, and a corner office on the top floor. This, she realised early on, was not as good as it sounded; she was just twenty feet below the main landing pad, and every time a helicopter arrived or left the room rattled with the noise. However, there were other, more tangible perks to her job, among them being that she was allowed to hold field clearance and had responsibility for allocating partnerships among the twenty or so investigating agents on the team. Most of them were humans, drawn from SHIELD, Interpol, and the intelligence agencies of Britain, Spain, Belgium and Germany, but she counted herself and Bishop among their numbers, as well as the Wisdom and Pryde – or the Chief of Special Operations and his partner, as the records described them. At twenty, Kitty was the youngest member of this section.  
  
Recruitment was at last finished, and she had filed the last of the day's paperwork, so Betsy had moved down to the recently completed dojo to continue her retraining. She had just finished a particularly enjoyable sparring session with a heavy-set kickboxer from the Portuguese air force, when something made her look up, to see Brian standing by the door.  
  
'Would you like to go for a walk?' He asked her.  
  
  
  
The siblings walked along the Thames. They were close to one another, but not quite touching.  
  
'So.' She said.  
  
'So.' He said. 'How's life treating you?'  
  
'Good, good. You?'  
  
'Meggan and I are considering pregnancy.' It came out in a rush, and Brian was slightly upset that the only response was a single upraised eyebrow. He remembered when they were children Betsy had spent months practicing that in front of a mirror. 'We're both a little . . . worried.'  
  
'Yes. Brian, while the miracle of childbirth is a wonderful, beautiful thing, pregnancy is not a good option for you right now.'  
  
'Why not?'  
  
'Well, quite frankly, I think you'd look ridiculous in a smock and, besides, last time I checked – which admittedly was when we were both eleven – you didn't have the necessary equipment.' He stared at her in shock, and she burst out laughing and pulled him into an embrace. 'Let me rephrase that. I'm going to be an aunt! Yay!'  
  
'Yay?' Passers-by were turning their heads.  
  
'Travel, Brian. Broadens the vocabulary. Now, what were you worried about?'  
  
'Well . . . what would our children be?'  
  
'Loved, protected, spoiled rotten by their glamorous aunt? Seriously? They will be the children of an elemental mutant changeling and a half-fay Omniversal ruler. Probably mutants, possibly with shapeshifting or elemental abilities – mutant genetics are unpredictable. The rest doesn't matter.' She glanced at him. 'You know full well that magic doesn't have much of an effect on these things, and anyway, if there is anything wrong, you could fix it, remember?'  
  
'Betsy?'  
  
'Yes?'  
  
'Do you remember when we were children?'  
  
'Yes.'  
  
'Do you remember playing with father?' His sister gave him an appraising look.  
  
'He didn't play with us.' She reminded him. 'I think I see where you're going with this.'  
  
'Meggan is . . . wonderful. She would love our children absolutely and care for them.'  
  
'So what worries you more? That she's going to spoil them, or that you're going to be a bad father?'  
  
'Me.' He looks as close to pathetic as a six-foot Adonis with a palpable aura of power can.  
  
'Brian. You worry too much. Do you honestly think, if you do turn out to be a bad father, Meggan and I won't point it out to you and then beat you round the head until you improve? Besides – you're worried about it. That's a good start, wouldn't you say?'  
  
'Maybe. Um, there's another reason I came to talk to you, though.'  
  
'And that would be?'  
  
'Meggan and I think I should do something nice for you. Give you something you want or need.'  
  
'You mean, Meggan thinks and you agree so as not to have your chances of fathering children indefinitely postponed?'  
  
'Pretty much. So . . . how is your life?'  
  
'Good. I've got a well-paid post in an organisation that's already beginning to help people, my finances are improving constantly, and my beloved brother has just brought me the wonderful news that he's going to start work on expanding the family this very evening. I'll admit that the paperwork gets a little wearying occasionally, but I'm getting a personal assistant at the start of next week, and while I mayy have a nonexistent sex life, quite frankly that's my choice and I could walk into any club in London and correct it in an instant.' He was giving her a look now. 'What?'  
  
'Missing the X-Men?'  
  
'The mansion more than the people. My friends are just a phone call away, but the HQ just isn't the same as sharing a room with . . . somebody.'  
  
'What do you want?'  
  
'I want Doug and Illyana and Piotr to have never died. I want Warren to never have been turned into Death, and Vargas to never have been born. I want Bishop to be happy with his life, and Rogue to be in control of her powers. Can you do all that, Brian, without damaging the natural order or manipulating anyone's mind?'  
  
'No.' He told her sadly. She smiled gently into his eyes. 'You didn't wish the bad parts of your past away.'  
  
'They're a part of me.'  
  
'And all those events are a part of others. If Doug hadn't died, Rhane would have instead. There would have been no-one to care for Moira, and perhaps Legacy would have killed all your friends. If Piotr hadn't died, I rather suspect that Hank would have tried to use the cure on himself. If you hadn't died . . .'  
  
'Bishop would not think himself a murderer.'  
  
'And Vargas and Sabretooth would still be killing people.' She nodded. 'Resurrecting you was wrong of me. It went against nature and was an abuse of my power and position. I did it because I was depressed and lonely, and I'd do it again tomorrow with Meggan by my side and enough Prozac to mellow Pete Wisdom in my system.'  
  
'Did I ever say thank you?'  
  
'Actually . . . no, you didn't.'  
  
'Well then, thank you, Brian. My life isn't perfect, but it's much better than having no life at all. You've given me enough.' Reaching forward, she kissed him on the cheek. 


	7. Interlude: Don't Stop

Interlude: Don't Stop.  
  
  
  
I wake I still look I feel loose  
  
We're all here now who's the first?  
  
Ease into my heart.  
  
He must be one of us.  
  
  
  
Voices, thoughts, names.  
  
Confusion.  
  
There is a place where time and space are interchangeable, where merely by existing all things change, and where any being can achieve apotheosis – or oblivion.  
  
There is a world built from blood and furnished with fire, a realm of demons and nightmares, a place of utter darkness and corrupt evil.  
  
This is not Hell. This is Limbo.  
  
Everything that has ever been, here, everything that can never be, here – all of it happens, just a little while away.  
  
The environment itself is not always intrinsically hostile. People can survive here indefinitely – time does not always trouble to pass, and for every version of you rent limb from limb by the denizens of this place, half a dozen more will clamber bloodied and triumphant across their corpses. Ultimately, though, all this means is that you die half a dozen more times, in half a dozen new ways. Limbo is a terrible place, reflecting the whims of its rulers.  
  
There have been many, in what passes for the past. Demon Lords have battled and intrigued for the throne of this realm for as long as they have dwelt here, and on at least two occasions human sorceresses from the plane of Earth have gained ascendance. These beings, these powers, defeated their competitors and sat on the throne. None of them truly understood the nature of the place.  
  
Limbo is Chaos. Pure and absolute, by its very nature encompassing all things within its infinity. The pockets and periods of order that these petty powers believed to be the limit of the realm were merely the edges of bubbles within it. To truly rule Limbo, you must become part of it.  
  
At this time the throne of the realm is occupied by a human woman named Magik, the second to use that name. She maintains her fortress, she controls the population, and like so many others she thinks that she therefore rules Limbo. She struggles, and she maintains her position by the strength of her will and the power of her enchantments. The moment her guard drops or her power fails, she will be swept away, and Limbo will naturally revert back to its true Lord.  
  
Belasco sits in a place that is no place, and waits, as he has done many times before.  
  
He has the power, after all, and this means that he also has an obligation.  
  
  
  
You understand all about power and obligation. Once, long ago, you went to college in America, and while there roomed with a young man named Parker, and fought alongside a hero named Spider-Man. You now know these two to be one and the same.  
  
Spider-Man's creed was that great power brings great responsibility. The man you were then heard this, but never really understood what it meant. You came to accept your power as his right, to do with as you pleased. It was only when you put it aside, chose to neglect your obligations, that you learned once and for all what Parker had meant. Your selfishness, your irresponsibility, cost your sister her sight.  
  
That was a long time ago. Since then you have descended into alcoholism, and returned, have been trapped in the confusion of the time stream, and returned once more, have lost the power that you had accepted, and regained far more. Since then she has died twice, been changed beyond all recognition, travelled farther from this world than most human beings could ever imagine, and finally come full circle through your intervention. You are the ruler of the Omniverse, holding godlike power over a hundred hundred Earths, and you used your power to return her to life, health and youth.  
  
This was wrong, and you know it.  
  
This was also right, on a level that has nothing to do with obligations, with duty, with the responsibility of power, and everything to do with humanity, with not becoming as your predecessor, aloof, cold, and ultimately insane.  
  
And there was also an obligation as old as human intelligence. Betsy is your family.  
  
There are other obligations, though. You had friends once, teammates. Some of them need nothing from you, while others are beyond even your aid. But there are a few things you can do in their memories.  
  
You contemplate the ten thousand worlds over which you rules, and the other realms that edge these worlds, and he makes a decision.  
  
  
  
Limbo is one of the edge realms, an outside realm, a grey realm. It is one place, one thing, containing all things as part of the chaos that is itself.  
  
You know this, for it is self-evident.  
  
Limbo is a realm of illusion and magic, inhabited by demons and lost souls – not of the dead, but of those who wandered in, and never found a way back out.  
  
You know this, because it has been explained to you.  
  
Limbo, finally, is shaped by the wills of beings of power. A skilled sorcerer or a powerful demon may shape the environment with little difficulty. A being such as you have become can twist the realm itself, though it is no part of your domain.  
  
You walk, and voices whisper around you. They threaten, they demand, they beseech. A little of your power could aid them, could free them from Limbo.  
  
They are a distraction. You ignore them.  
  
You walk, and visions bombard you. Demons try to take your mind, to drive you insane. They assault you, and their attacks slide away from your defences. A little of your power could defeat them, could wipe them from existence.  
  
They are a distraction. You ignore them.  
  
Elder beings – horrors whose names are older than language – reach for your soul, clawing at it with clammy tendrils. Their magic is as powerful as any mortal, close to your own. They hurl attacks at you, and then slide cunning tendrils towards the edges of the shields around your soul. These creatures cannot be destroyed. You could banish them, though, and the words that will do this rise up unbidden from the depths of your mind.  
  
You ignore them, too. Like almost everything else in this realm, they are only a distraction.  
  
Finally, you reach your destination. A tall, urbane man, red-skinned and bearded, sits at a table set with elegant silver cutlery and priceless crystal. It is laid for two.  
  
'Majestor.' He inclines his head to you as you sit down. 'What brings you to my little corner of this mighty realm?' Food appears on the table before you, roast beef, potatoes, vegetables. It looks beautiful. It smells delicious. Wine fills your glasses, dark red and rich.  
  
You do not eat or drink.  
  
'Belasco. I seek an assurance.'  
  
'What could I, a mere deposed demonling, do to help a being such as yourself, the most powerful being in the Earth realms?' You lean across the table and meet his gaze. His hands – the real one, and the false – rest on the table, on either side of his plate.  
  
'Promise me you will stay deposed.' He raises an eyebrow at that. You hold the power here, and you both know it, but destroying him would cost you, at least in this realm. 'Amanda Sefton, Magik, is under my protection. You will not interfere with her rule.'  
  
'But what, then, have I to live for? You ask a lot of me, Majestor.'  
  
'She will fall, in time, and then Limbo will once more fall to you, Belasco.' He does not deny it. 'When that day comes, I will support your reign, until such time as you threaten me or mine.' And these days all humanity are your responsibility, but you do not remind him of that.  
  
'That seems reasonable.' He smiles, and lifts his glass. 'Was there anything else?'  
  
'Yes.' You tell him, thinking back to the vision you saw, to the dark world and the smallest hint of hope in the darkness.  
  
  
  
Sounds, ideas, concepts.  
  
Serenity.  
  
There is a place where time and space are interchangeable, where merely by existing all things change, and where any being can achieve apotheosis – or oblivion.  
  
There is a world built from belief and furnished with thought, a realm of gods and legends, a place of purest light and primeval darkness.  
  
This is not Heaven. This is the Dreamtime.  
  
Once, it is said, the world was linked to the Dream. People emerged from the Dream and populated the earth. The gods walked among them as animals and men, and the world was a beautiful, if harsh, place.  
  
Despite decades of anthropological study, this is probably the single most likely explanation for the indigenous population of Australia.  
  
Lately, though, there has come an edge of darkness to the Dream.  
  
It reaches out to minds across the planet, as it has always done. It touches them, inspires them.  
  
It drives them mad.  
  
What was once a network of dreams has become a web of nightmares.  
  
And in the centre, the Dreamtime's new master sits, and searches, and waits. 


End file.
